text:
The Technology of Massive Open Online Courses
The wave of enthusiasm for online education is unearthing some hard and interesting computational problems that Daphne Koller would love to solve. But first she has to find the time.
Last January, Koller and her colleague Andrew Ng took leave from faculty positions at Stanford University's artificial-intelligence lab to create Coursera, a venture-financed online-education startup with offices five miles from campus.
Since then, Coursera's growth has been rapid and all consuming. The company has posted more than 200 free classes taught by professors at 33 top universities, such as the University of Pennsylvania and Caltech. More than 1.5 million students have signed up, and about 70,000 new students—the equivalent of four or five Stanfords—join every week.
Koller, 44, now spends her average day "probably on a plane somewhere" headed to pitch Coursera to university administrators and faculty. The last 10 months have transformed her from a celebrated expert in statistics into the co-CEO of a large and complex educational website whose money-making plans are still nascent.
"As I drive home, I sometimes think this is somebody else's life," she says. She calls the experience "surreal."
So far, tearing down the paywalls around higher education has been the simple part. What's more challenging is making online classes like "A History of the World Since 1300" and "Algorithms I" match the quality of their in-person equivalents. That means racing to set up live forums for class discussions, keeping the site from crashing amidst the crush of students, and urgently seeking ways to make classes more interactive and to automate grading as much as possible.
Given such technical challenges, it's not an accident that many of the people behind recent efforts to put college courses online come from computer science labs. Another Stanford researcher, Sebastian Thrun, resigned to create the startup Udacity. At MIT, the former head of the AI department, Anant Agarwal, now runs edX, another of the organizations offering "massive online open courses," or MOOCs (see "The Crisis in Higher Education").
"We saw the opportunity and the technology and had the ability to leverage it," says Koller. But putting classes online is only part of what the AI researchers intend with MOOCs. By following the progress of millions of students online, it may be possible to develop new insights into how people learn and tailor classes on an individual level. "What we have here is an unprecedented level of detail and scale of data," she says.
Koller is a third-generation PhD who grew up in Jerusalem, where her father was a well-known botanist. She is no stranger to experimenting with new forms of teaching: more than a decade ago, Stanford began broadcasting one of her classes for adult-education students. Eventually, Koller began telling all her students to watch the lectures at home. "All of a sudden, the idea kind of just popped into my brain that it didn't make sense for me to go into class every week teaching the same lecture that I've been teaching for 15 years, the same jokes at the same time," she says.
Attending class became optional, a time for one-on-one interaction. Even so, twice as many students began showing up. In 2011, she and Ng helped Stanford open three classes online to the public at large. This year, they raised $22 million from investors to start Coursera and create a Web platform any school could use.
Like its technology, Coursera's business model is a work in progress. One idea considered has been a job board to connect employers to students who have taken specific Coursera classes. Another is to charge students who want to earn an official credit. In November, Antioch University in Los Angeles said it would begin letting its students take two Coursera classes for credit, splitting the modest revenues with the company.
Classes on the site are still of uneven technical quality. A course on Greek and Roman mythology is little more than a talking professor green-screened against bullet points and pictures of temples. But Koller believes this is just the beginning. By collecting an unprecedented amount of data about how students are learning, and analyzing it automatically in real time, educators could realize their dreams of personalized education at a large scale. "The goal is to design personalization, and to identify where someone is struggling and what might be helpful to them," she says.
Some of Koller's own academic research, published this February, illustrates how this might work. She and several collaborators applied machine-learning techniques to study an introductory programming class. The researchers created mathematical descriptions of the students themselves, looking for models that would explain their advances and setbacks. One discovery: success in the course was predicted by a student's approach to solving the first assignments, not by right or wrong answers.
So far, Koller has had little time to pursue this or many other potential avenues for research, but Coursera has started to wade into the realm of "big data." For instance, staffers have begun testing to compare different video presentation styles, even down to the way colors are displayed. By showing different students different formats—and tracking who keeps watching—they hope to discover which ones decrease the likelihood that a student will tune out.
Automation becomes more difficult—yet also more important—the further Koller gets from her familiar ground of math and computer science. Multiple-choice questions, computer code, and math problems can be graded by a machine. But what about an essay, a drawing, or a question whose correct answer could be "Obama," "Barack Obama," or "the president"?
These are still hard problems for computer science. For its growing number of classes in liberal arts and social sciences, Coursera has instead devised a peer grading system, in which a computer assigns classmates to give one another feedback. One popular class that uses this system is Modern & Contemporary American Poetry, taught by University of Pennsylvania professor Al Filreis. It consists of a lively discussion, organized much like a call-in radio show, with questions taken from the phones, forums, and Twitter.
Around 30,000 students signed up—making one-on-one teaching impossible. From the class discussion forums, it's clear not everyone is thrilled with the peer grading approach. In another class, the one on Greek and Roman mythology, confusion caused delays and mid-course changes to the grading system.
Despite such problems, Koller says, her conversations with potential university partners are becoming progressively easier. Online learning used to be synonymous with shady diploma mills that offered a questionable product. Now it suggests something much better and more technologically sophisticated. "There's been a huge transition in people's thinking," she says.
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subset: commoncrawl


text:
We now have an explanation why officials didn't overturn the pick six that Andrew Luck threw in the Indianapolis Colts' 27-23 win over the Tennessee Titans on Sunday.
On NFL Network
NFL Replay will re-air the
Indianapolis Colts' 27-23 victory over the Tennessee
Titans in Week 14 on Wednesday, Dec. 12 at 9 p.m. ET.
Luck's left knee clearly was down before he released the ball, meaning the play should've ended before his pass wound up in the midsection of Titans linebacker Will Witherspoon. Surprisingly, the ruling was not overturned, and the touchdown stood.
ESPN's Chris Mortensen said on "Monday Night Countdown" that the definitive replay proving Luck was down never was provided to the replay assistant or referee Pete Morelli in the 60 seconds of allowable access to the broadcast footage. As a result, there was no evidence to overturn the call.
Obviously, this would've been a much bigger story had the Colts not come back to win Sunday. It's a troubling communication breakdown nonetheless.
Follow Dan Hanzus on Twitter @DanHanzus.


text:
From investigating the lives of medieval Islamic scholars to studying 15th-century manuscripts from the confessors of Burgundy, history graduate students at Notre Dame are traveling the world to conduct original research.
Six Ph.D. students in the Department of History have been awarded 2016-17 research grants from the Fulbright U.S. Student Program, the U.S. government's flagship international educational exchange program.
Elizabeth Baker, Andrea Castonguay, Raymond "JR" Drause, Garrett Fontenot, Danae Jacobson, and Sean Sapp are among a total of 30 Notre Dame students to receive Fulbright awards this year—breaking the previous University-wide Fulbright record of 17, set last year.
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Elizabeth Baker
Elizabeth Baker
Baker received a Fulbright-Nehru Award to travel to India, where she will be working in archives in New Delhi and Chennai and taking classes in Hindi.
Her dissertation on British imperial and gender history is all about representation, she said.
"At its heart, my work asks who speaks for India and for Indian women," Baker said. "While it is encouraging to see how identity politics have begun to give a voice to the disenfranchised and oppressed that did not exist in the heyday of the British Empire, we still have a long way to go."
Baker has also conducted research in Britain, with funding from Notre Dame's Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts and Nanovic Institute for European Studies.
"My project has one foot in Britain and one in India, and without the support of those institutions, I would not have been able to complete research that was essential for both my Fulbright grant proposal and my dissertation."
Andrea Castonguay
Andrea Castonguay
Castonguay will be spending a year in Morocco to improve her Arabic, deepen her knowledge of Islamic law and its development, and research the medieval Islamic scholars who lived in North Africa and Spain during the Almoravid dynasty.
Medieval Muslim scholars recorded their lives in biographical collections to preserve knowledge of their legal decisions, their teachers and students, their relationships with political leaders, and their travels.
"By mining these works, I plan to build a database that maps the movement of these scholars to compare their travels to what we know about the spread of Islam in North Africa at the time," she said.
American scholars have long overlooked the history of North Africa and the expansion of Islam, Castonguay said, and missed opportunities to connect with other scholars in the region.
"The fact that the Fulbright Commission recognized the profound need for increased communication between American and North African scholars—and the need for a deeper understanding of the region's history—is a very good sign for us as a whole," she said.
Raymond "JR" Drause
Raymond "JR" Drause
For his dissertation, Drause will travel to Russia, researching Siberian development in the 19th century. Like the other Fulbright scholars, he said the Notre Dame community has been instrumental to his success.
"It is always gratifying and uplifting when someone believes in your work," said Drause, whose research has also been supported by the Nanovic Institute. "And I want to thank my advisers and colleagues who have provided feedback and encouragement over the years."
Drause believes the Graduate School's Office of Grants and Fellowships, and its former director Michael Westrate, deserve immense credit for the University's success with the Fulbright Program.
"The office provides workshops, lunch-and-learn events, and countless draft reviews," he said. "They offer support at every step of the application process."
Garrett Fontenot
Garrett Fontenot
Fontenot's dissertation explores the political culture of the French Empire in the second half of the 18th century, particularly in France's former colonies. As a Fulbright scholar, he will be based in Montreal, but will travel throughout Quebec and Ontario to access manuscripts and primary sources.
"Winning a Fulbright represents one of the most humbling and proudest moments of my career," he said, "especially since I have the honor to receive it alongside so many others in my graduate cohort."
Fontenot said his mentors at Notre Dame encouraged him to pursue his academic interests in American history beyond the borders of the United States.
"The faculty in the Department of History have inspired me to not shy away from challenges and to pursue bold and innovative ideas when I had them—which led me to take an interest in Canada and, ultimately, apply for the Fulbright.
"I am excited to represent both the United States and Notre Dame in my year in Montreal."
Danae Jacobson
Danae Jacobson
Jacobson is also headed to Canada, to conduct archival research in Ottawa, Ontario, and Montreal, Quebec. She is focusing her dissertation on the intersection of environmental and religious history in North America.
In particular, Jacobson studies communities of religious women who lived and worked on the frontier in North America in order to better understand spiritual landscapes and 19th-century westward expansion.
"On campus, I work with strong scholars in both religious and environmental history," she said. "This combination is hard to find at a university and tremendously helpful in my research."
To help prepare her application, Jacobson participated in a multi-week summer workshop offered through the Office of Grants and Fellowships, which provided constant support throughout the process.
"I would not have won—or even applied—without their encouragement," she said.
Sean Sapp
Sean Sapp
Sapp will travel to Belgium to do archival research on the confessors of late medieval Burgundy, using manuscripts from the 15th century. He aims to understand why and how confessors made choices between their religious and secular responsibilities.
Spending nine months in the country as a Fulbright scholar will be invaluable, he said.
"It takes time to get familiar with each archive and each manuscript," Sapp said. "The time I'll be able to spend there allows for careful and reflective research that will make my project stronger."
Sapp credits the University's Summer Language Abroad program with helping him become a more competitive Fulbright candidate (Castonguay and Fontenot also were SLA grant recipients). He received a grant from the Center for the Study of Languages and Cultures to spend summer 2015 in Belgium studying Dutch—the primary language of most scholars in late medieval Burgundy.
"While I was there I made key connections to scholars at the university where I'll now be researching," he said. "And I believe my willingness to learn Dutch clearly marked me as someone deserving of the grant."


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September 20, 2013
Coffee Hour series begins Sept. 20
International student and scholar services is hosting its first Coffee Hour of the season on Friday, Sept. 20. Join us from 4-5 p.m. at the International Student Center for coffee and a presentation on Poland led by Jakub Jedryszek. You'll also have the opportunity to try food from Poland and visit with international students and community members.
Coffee Hour presentations are a great way to learn about countries around the world from the people who live there. Coffee Hours will run every other Friday this semester. Check out our website for a complete schedule.


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Free Beer & Hot Wings: Over the House Football-Basketball Shot [Video]
Eric Zane's son's friend forwarded this video to Zane this week.
He and his friend just shot it the other day in Jenison, Mich.
Now, we've seen some pretty impressive trick shot videos before, and this one ranks right up there with the most impressive ones.
Watch what appears to be a 30- to 40-yard basketball trick shot, but with a football instead of a basketball. Oh, and there's a giant house in the middle of everything.
Not too shabby, kid.
Source: Free Beer & Hot Wings


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Create a Website Account - Manage notification subscriptions, save form progress and more.
You can vote in Washington State even if you are away from home during an election. To make sure you receive your ballot, update your seasonal mailing address with your county elections department. Provide the first and last days you'll receive mail at this address, and your county will send your ballot to this address each year between those dates. Although your mailing address can be anywhere in the world, your residential address must remain in Washington State. For more information on voting residency, visit Residency Requirements
Being an Informed Voter
Information about ballot measures and candidates:


text: Dave Love wrote: > Rahul Nabar <rpnabar at gmail.com> writes: > >> What are typical latencies I ought to be seeing with gigabit eth? > > I have some data at http://www.nw-grid.ac.uk/LivMPI > Note that you may have to tune the driver parameters to get the lowest > latency. Dave, Can you say something about any tuning you did to get decent results? We've had some interesting problems (until lately; new broadcom drivers helped) getting decent performance. We're using Dell 1950's with Harpertown and broadcom NICs are native. Which driver parms had to get tweaked? Thanks, Gerry -- Gerry Creager -- gerry.creager at tamu.edu Texas Mesonet -- AATLT, Texas A&M University Cell: 979.229.5301 Office: 979.458.4020 FAX: 979.862.3983 Office: 1700 Research Parkway Ste 160, TAMU, College Station, TX 77843


text:
Did you know there are nearly 10 million households in the United States that don't have a bank account? For them, basic items such as cashing a check or paying bills can become difficult and very expensive tasks.
Prepaid debit cards can be an option, allowing customers to enjoy the ease of direct deposit, the flexibility of a being able to pay with plastic, and the organization of online bill pay.
These cards work a lot like a gift card; you will have to load the account with cash (direct deposit is usually available) before you can use it for a purchase. Let's take a closer look at what prepaid debit cards offer.
[Related Article: The First Thing to Do Before Applying for a Credit Card]
These cards look like credit cards and can be used for most situations that require a credit card. However, they are not credit cards. Instead of granting you a credit limit based on your financial standing, these accounts require you to "load" the card with your own money.
Getting a prepaid card is usually easy, even if you have credit problems. You can't get into debt using a prepaid card, since you cannot spend more than the balance you have deposited. (A few cards may allow you to overdraft the account, but most don't. If they do allow overdrafts, you may be charged a fee.) Also, you will not be charged interest for your spending.
Other pros of prepaid debit cards:
- Easy approval process, no credit required.
- Some liability protections for cards carrying the American Express, MasterCard or Visa logos.
- Can be used for online or phone purchases.
- Cash can be accessed from ATM machines.
- May be less expensive than check-cashing services.
[Credit Cards: Research and compare prepaid cards at Credit.com]
The Cons
Prepaid debit cards do not report your payment history to the credit bureaus, so this type of card will not help you improve your credit. (If you'd like to see your credit standing, along with your credit scores, check out Credit.com's free Credit Report Card.) Prepaid cards cannot be used in all situations. For example, hotels and car rental agencies will not allow you to use a prepaid card to secure your rentals.
Other cons:
- May have expensive fees for opening and maintaining the account.
- May have fees for loading money on the account or using the card for purchases.
- The cards tend to have fewer fraud and billing protections than credit cards.
- Does not help repair your credit.
- May be more expensive than opening a checking account and using an ATM card.
Fees and charges can vary significantly between different prepaid credit card offers. Be sure to read the fee schedule for the prepaid credit card before you apply.
Image: iStockphoto
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Washington, – November 20, 2013 – (RealEstateRama) — The Financial Services Housing and Insurance Subcommittee held a hearing today on the importance of implementing the Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act in order to protect taxpayers from having to continue bailing out the debt-ridden National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP).
Rental in National News |
Rental in Social Media |
With a $24 billion debt, the NFIP is facing serious challenges and cannot continue to operate on its current fiscal trajectory. Since 2006, the Government Accountability Office has labeled the NFIP a "high-risk" to taxpayers. Because the flood insurance program does not charge rates sufficient to cover its obligations and projected losses, it can operate only with significant taxpayer support and has potentially large future liabilities.
The Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act of 2012 was an important first step towards reforming the NFIP. The law mandates a series of reforms that the Congressional Budget Office estimates would generate a $2.7 billion increase in net income to the program over the next 10 years. The Biggert-Waters Act also seeks to encourage a greater role for the private sector in providing flood insurance coverage.
"After more than a decade in Congress, if I have learned anything, it is that the federal government does a terrible job of underwriting and pricing risk, and that has very real consequences for taxpayers who end up footing the bill for the government's failures," said Subcommittee Chairman Randy Neugebauer (R-TX). "Whether it is Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the Federal Housing Administration, Medicare, or soon to be Obamacare, the failure of the federal government to adequately price risk has piled hundreds of billions of dollars onto our $17 trillion national debt."


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D041 describes the standards for letterboxes or other receptacles for the deposit or receipt of mail. It also contains the standards for curbside mailboxes.
Except as excluded by 1.2, every letterbox or other receptacle intended or used for the receipt or delivery of mail on any city delivery route, rural delivery route, highway contract route, or other mail route is designated an authorized depository for mail within the meaning of 18 USC 1702, 1705, 1708, and 1725.
Door slots and nonlockable bins or troughs used with apartment house mailboxes are not letterboxes within the meaning of 18 USC 1725 and are not private mail receptacles for the standards for mailable matter not bearing postage found in or on private mail receptacles. The post or other support is not part of the receptacle.
Except under 2.11, the receptacles described in 1.1 may be used only for matter bearing postage. Other than as permitted by 2.10 or 2.11, no part of a mail receptacle may be used to deliver any matter not bearing postage, including items or matter placed upon, supported by, attached to, hung from, or inserted into a mail receptacle. Any mailable matter not bearing postage and found as described above is subject to the same postage as would be paid if it were carried by mail.
Customers must keep the approach to their mailboxes clear of obstructions to allow safe access for delivery. If USPS employees are impeded in reaching a mail receptacle, the postmaster may withdraw delivery service.
Manufacturers of all mailboxes designed and made to be erected at the edge of a roadway or curbside of a street and to be served by a carrier from a vehicle on any city route, rural route, or highway contract route must obtain approval of their products under USPS Standard 7, Mailboxes, City and Rural Curbside. To receive these construction standards and drawings or other information about the manufacture of curbside mailboxes, write to USPS Engineering (see G043 for address).
The local postmaster may approve a curbside mailbox constructed by a customer who, for aesthetic or other reasons, does not want to use an approved manufactured box. The custom-built box must generally meet the same standards as approved manufactured boxes for flag, size, strength, and quality of construction.
Every curbside mailbox must bear the following address information:
a. A box number, if used, inscribed in contrasting color in neat letters and numerals at least 1 inch high on the side of the box visible to the carriers regular approach, or on the door if boxes are grouped.
b. A house number if street names and house numbers have been assigned by local authorities, and the postmaster authorizes their use as a postal address. If the box is on a different street from the customers residence, the street name and house number must be inscribed on the box.
The mailbox may bear the owners name.
Any advertising on a mailbox or its support is prohibited.
The post or other support for a curbside mailbox must be neat and of adequate strength and size. The post may not represent effigies or caricatures that tend to disparage or ridicule any person. The box may be attached to a fixed or movable arm.
Subject to state laws and regulations, a curbside mailbox must be placed to allow safe and convenient delivery by carriers without leaving their vehicles. The box must be on the right-hand side of the road in the direction of travel of the carriers on any new rural route or highway contract route, in all cases where traffic conditions are dangerous for the carriers to drive to the left to reach the box, or where their doing so would violate traffic laws and regulations.
If more than one family wishes to share a mail receptacle, the following standards apply:
a. Route and Box Number Addressing. On rural and highway contract routes authorized to use a route and box numbering system (e.g., RR 1 BOX 155), up to five families may share a single mail receptacle and use a common route and box designation. A written notice of agreement, signed by the heads of the families or individuals who want to join in the use of such box, must be filed with the postmaster at the delivery office.
b. Conversion to Street Name and Number Addressing. When street name and numbering systems are adopted, those addresses reflect distinct customer locations and sequences. Rural and highway contract route customers who are assigned different primary addresses (e.g., 123 APPLE WAY vs. 136 APPLE WAY) should erect individual mail receptacles in locations recommended by their postmasters and begin using their new addresses. Customers having different primary addresses who wish to continue sharing a common receptacle must use the address of the receptacles owner and the care of address format:
Customers having a common primary address (e.g., 800 MAIN ST) but different secondary addresses (e.g., APT 101, APT 102, etc.) may continue to share a common receptacle if single-point delivery is authorized for the primary address. Secondary addresses should still be included in all correspondence.
A mailbox with a lock must have a slot that is large enough to accommodate the customers normal daily mail volume. The USPS neither opens a locked box nor accepts a key for this purpose.
Generally, curbside mailboxes are to be used for mail only. However, publishers of newspapers regularly mailed as Periodicals may, on Sundays and national holidays only, place copies of the Sunday or holiday issues in the rural route and highway contract route boxes of subscribers if those copies are removed from the boxes before the next scheduled day of mail delivery.
A receptacle for newspaper delivery by private carriers may be attached to the post of a curbside mailbox used by the USPS if the receptacle:
a. Does not touch the mailbox or use any part of the mailbox for support.
b. Does not interfere with the delivery of mail, obstruct the view of the mailbox flag, or present a hazard to carrier or vehicle.
c. Does not extend beyond the front of the mailbox when the box door is closed.
d. Does not display advertising, except the publication title.
DMM Issue 58 (8-10-03)


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Half Moon Upholstered Bed With Mattress
On our website we hope you will find the answers to all your questions. We know that online shopping takes a lot of consideration and you may need reassurance when deciding whether to purchase something without having seen it. Therefore we have prepared some information that may dispel any doubts and help you make an informed decision. We aim to make our terms of sale clear, but if you have any more questions, we would be happy to help further – see our contact page for ways to get in touch.
Do you have a problem with your new furniture?
We want you to be happy with your new furniture. Should you have a problem, please click on this link and complete the form
Please include the required photos and give as much detail as possible to help us resolve the issue. Thank you.
I would like to return my order - within 14 days of receiving my furniture
We hope this will not be necessary.
You have the right to cancel this contract within 14 days. The cancellation period will expire after 14 days from the day on which you acquire, or a third party other than the carrier and indicated by you acquires, physical possession of the goods.
If you do want to return your goods, just email us within 14 days of receiving your delivery. If the goods have arrived damaged or are faulty, please see the relevant section below. If you have simply changed your mind and the goods are in perfect condition, just email us at firstname.lastname@example.com, remembering to quote your order number and we will arrange for the collection. Please see table below for details of the returns charges.
Important information: Please return the goods to us in their original condition and packaging with all accessories and packaging components. Your furniture cannot be used and cannot be assembled. If the furniture is not returned to us in a saleable condition, this will affect your refund.
I would like to return my order - over 14 days of receiving my furniture
If you simply change your mind after the term of 14 days from delivery has elapsed, you are no longer entitled to return the goods. The only exception to this is if the product is defective or faulty. In this case, please contact us and fill out the claims form and add photographs of the product defects. Our team will be able to advise you on further action.
What if a piece of furniture arrives damaged or I receive goods different from those ordered?
We do everything we can to ensure that your furniture reaches you in perfect condition. Despite that, very occasionally products may reach customers with visible defects and damage. It is important to inspect the goods immediately after they are delivered to your home. It is best to do this in the presence of the delivery team so that any possible damage can be recorded. What should you do in such a situation? Simply contact us via email at email@example.com. Our team will not leave you alone with the issue and will do everything to find a solution as soon as possible. You will need to fill in our online claims form, including photo/s of the damage/s and your order number. Any damages ideally need to be reported at time of delivery and if that isn't possible, then within 24 hours of you receiving your order.
Important information: If the goods need to be returned to us, they must be in their original condition and packaging with all accessories and packaging components. A sofa cannot be used and cannot be returned assembled.
What if my furniture doesn't fit in my home/room?
We ask that you check all packed measurements of the furniture before you order, as it is your responsibility to check that it will fit into your home and your room, paying particular attention to doorways/passageways/stairways and around any corners. If the delivery team are unable to deliver it safely, they will take it back, but you will incur the returns charges as specified in the cancellation and returns charges table. All dimensions are shown in the item description on the website, but if you need further clarification, please contact us.
Can I cancel an order?
Of course, you can. However due to all our upholstered furniture being made to order, this may incur cancellation or return charges. These are detailed in the table below:
Return/cancellation charge amount |
Before you receive your furniture |
7 days cooling off period (from when you place your order) |
At any point within 7 days after placing your order you may cancel, simply by emailing us. We will then confirm back by email and you will receive a full refund. |
No charges. You will receive a full refund of your order including delivery charges. |
8 days and over from when you placed your order |
After 7 days have elapsed after you have placed your order, you can still cancel but you will incur a cancellation charge |
You will receive a refund of your order including delivery charges, but minus the late cancellation charge (up to £99 per item – see charge breakdown table for more details). |
After you receive your furniture |
Doesn't fit in your house |
We provide all packed dimensions for you to check your new furniture can fit both inside your property and into your room, before you order, so this shouldn't be a problem. It is your responsibility to ensure our team can deliver it safely. |
You will receive a refund of your order including delivery charges, but minus the returns charge (up to £149 per item – see charge breakdown table for more details). |
Damaged |
Where possible you should make the delivery team aware of this at point of delivery |
Please fill in our online claim form and our dedicated claims department will resolve this for you. |
Faulty |
Your furniture has a 12 month warranty, so at any point you notice a fault this must be reported to us. |
Please fill in our online claim form and our dedicated claims department will resolve this for you. |
Change of mind (up to 14 days after your furniture is delivered) |
If you simply don't like it or it doesn't suit your interior. Please note, this must be returned in perfect condition and in the original packaging. |
You will receive a refund of your order including delivery charges, but minus the returns charge (up to £149 per item – see charge breakdown table for more details). |
Please note all cancellations can only be processed once we have received a notification by email to email@example.com.
Return / cancellation charges
If the product is returned due to a fault at our end, e.g. a defective product or one not in accordance with your order, then you will not be charged additionally for returning the goods. You have a 7 day cooling off period after you place your order, where if want to cancel you may do so without incurring any additional charges. However, if you wish to simply cancel your order after this time you will incur either a cancellation or returns charge, calculated per item – see tables below:
Product price |
Cancellation charge |
£0-£199.99 |
£35 |
£200-£399.99 |
£75 |
£400 or more |
£99 |
Product price |
Return charge |
£0-£199.99 |
£49 |
£200-£399.99 |
£99 |
£400 or more |
£149 |
Why do I have to pay a cancellation/return charge?
All our upholstered furniture is made to your specific order, in our own factory in Europe - we don't hold any stock. Therefore we ask you to think very carefully before ordering to make sure your choice is right for you and the space in your home. Once we have made it especially for you we can't sell it to anyone else. This is why we have a structured refund and return policy to reflect this. Please refer to our cancellation/return charge tables for further details.
Within what time frame will I receive my refund?
Depending on the payment method you have used, your money for the returned product will be refunded to you in the same way. If you have used a credit card, we will transfer the money to your credit card. If you have used the PayPal payment method, the funds will be returned to your PayPal account. Once we have processed this we will email you a confirmation.The refund should appear in your account within around 5-7 working days.
Do I have the option to change my order once it has already been placed?
Unfortunately, there is no such option. This is because all our furniture is made to order, so as soon as you place your order, this goes straight into our production system and cannot be changed. For orders placed within 7 days of you changing your mind, this can be cancelled without any additional charges and then you can re-order your new choice. After placing an order, we can only change your contact information and delivery address. In case of any questions, please contact us.
Can I return my mattress?
For hygiene reasons a mattress can only be returned if it's still in its original sealed packaging. Once the packaging has been opened you will no longer be able to return it. This does not affect your statutory rights.


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Today I would like to ask, when did the fruits of meditation start appearing in your daily lives. Sometimes, I'll think 'when will my head be more clear' or 'when will I be more compassionate'. While writing this though, I have noticed that a lot of Zen has shed light on my life, like when you turn on the light switch to a dark, confusing room. I know that I have my ideals, and I will be disappointed, but when will Zazen (such as mindfulness) be more apparent in my life?
Tell me if I must elaborate more!


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82mm Objective Lens: An ideal balance of size and brightness.
Multicoated Optics: Provides a bright, high contrast image with true color rendition.
Ergonomic, Lightweight Porro Prism Design.
Internal Surface Texturing: Minimizes reflective light loss inside scope.
Built-in Sliding Sunshade: Eliminates glare in bright conditions, keeps dust and rain off objective lens in rainy or dusty conditions.
Waterproof/Fogproof: Nitrogen-purged and O-ring sealed.
LCD, Video and Photo Gallery images are for illustrative purposes only.


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In the middle of a video parody on YouTube that skewers council on our new rec facilities, there's a comment about "the mushroom farm debacle." It then goes on, rather erratically, to rail about "two yanks" and mushrooms growing in manure and "enobe" mushrooms.
What debacle?
Clearly the video's creator never actually watched the public presentation made to council a year ago about a possible use for the terminals as an indoor mushroom farm. Or read the stories in both newspapers. Or heard the news reports on local radio. Or asked anyone on staff or council about the proposal. Or did any online research. But don't worry if actually verifying the facts was too much work: I'll do the hard work for you here.
And as far as I am aware, the two gentlemen who made the presentation are both Canadian, not American. One is a local chiropractor.
The mushrooms in question are not your standard grocery-store button mushrooms (most of which may come from China*, by the way!): what was proposed were specialty (gourmet) mushrooms that grow on substrate: commonly wood chips, sawdust, used coffee grounds and composted or processed vegetable material (such as the corn waste produced by the now-former Amaizeingly Green plant). Manure, the proponents said several times during the presentation, would not be not used. There would be no odour.
The USDA, in one of its brochures on mushroom cultivation, notes that oyster mushrooms,
Although commonly grown on sterile straw from wheat or rice, they will also grow on a wide variety of high-cellulose waste materials. Some of these materials do not require sterilization, only pasteurization, which is less expensive. Another advantage of growing oyster mushrooms is that a high percentage of the substrate converts to fruiting bodies, increasing the potential profitability.
There are no similar, large mushroom farms growing these specialty – and expensive – mushrooms in Ontario (or, I believe, in Canada**). There is potential for considerable profit in a big and growing marketplace, we were told, for a successful farm that grows these mushrooms (oyster, shiitake, enoki (not "enobe") and so on). The University of Missouri's Centre for Agroforestry, notes that specialty mushrooms are a growing and sustainable industry:
Not only can specialty mushrooms be grown on a range of acreage allotments, mushroom cultivation is a sustainable and profitable way to recycle low-value forestry by-products, including non-merchantable stems and branch wood. Utilizing shade levels and understory from a forest farming practice, UMCA scientists and collaborators are determining the best suited types of mushrooms for Missouri soils. The goal of this research is to refine established production techniques for a diverse suite of outdoor mushroom species and enable Missouri landowners to capture a growing gourmet market… One of the state's most significant demonstrations of a successful forest farming practice is Dan Hellmuth and Nicola Macpherson's Ozark Forest Mushrooms, Timber, Mo. The entrepreneurial couple established the specialty mushroom operation in 1990 on what was then a timber operation, and coordinate every step of the value-added process, from the inoculated log to packaged, consumer-friendly products. Under the guidelines of the Stewardship Incentive Program, administered by the Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC), Hellmuth and Macpherson harvest a renewable supply of mushroom bed logs while simultaneously maintaining their forested acres in a healthy ecological state – and what began 14 years ago with only 100 oak logs in production has grown to include 12,000 shiitake logs in production.
Penn State University has a similar agribusiness program. They note that the market for specialty mushrooms is growing by leaps and bounds:
For the past 8 years, specialty mushroom production has increased an average of 20%. Based on recent and historical trends, it is expected that diversification of the mushroom industry will continue in the United States and many other western countries. The development of improved technology to cultivate each species more efficiently, will allow consumer prices to decline.
These mushrooms are not solely for food: they are an important source of nutraceuticals used in alternative and traditional medical practices (see also here). A gourmet mushroom farm has the potential to spin off a side industry of medical research and product preparation. More jobs.
Then, the video says these "yanks…want to buy our precious grain terminal for one dollar." Again, someone wasn't listening. Or reading. Or thinking.
The proposal – made in front of council, the media and TV cameras – suggested a nominal one-dollar purchase PLUS a percentage of the profits, should the proposal be accepted. The proponents also proposed to cover all costs for remediation of the building.
The "precious" terminals had been publicly declared surplus in fall of 2011 (motion 392). The motion called for "input from the public, developers and respective agencies" on any potential uses for the building. The unsolicited, public presentation to council on January, 16, 2012, from the proponents, was part of that process.
Nothing hidden there. Someone had a creative idea and brought it to council. It was one of those "outside the box" ideas that surprised me because it was so unusual and innovative. Is that what bothers some folks? Or was it the potential to create a sustainable, safe industry that offered well-paying jobs?
The idea was presented in greater detail when the town put forward a "request for proposal" on the terminals, along with the proponents' financials. However, to date, no decision has been made about selling the "precious" terminals (it's an abandoned brownfield, a heritage building on the waterfront, resting on wooden piles almost a century old, with asbestos and other pollutants inside, sitting beside a waste dump; adjacent to a publicly-used harbour, within a stone's throw of protected wetlands; it has inadequate power, water and no waste-water outlet for other uses, and has leases for telecommunications equipment and the yacht club associated – there are MANY legal, procedural and environmental issues that we must resolve before we can move forward with any proponent).
No money ever changed hands, not even the imaginary dollar that seems to haunt some folks. (What's with that dollar? It's never explained why $1 matters; it just raises its ectoplasmic head on the Ouija board of this conspiracy.)
The proponents asked council if they could have a biologist examine the building to see if it was suitable for such an idea, and to determine what, if any, work would be required to make it happen. We'd allow any potential buyer's engineer or building inspector to check it out, why not a biologist?
They also requested permission to run a very small test inside the building to find out if the idea was actually viable – a "proof of concept." This would involve (as I recall the discussion) putting two small table-top-size trays in the terminals, with spores on a base material (sawdust, I believe), to see if these exotic mushrooms would actually grow. The test would take a few weeks, and would not involve doing anything to the building aside from cleaning the space for the test, then putting the trays inside, and waiting.
Council said yes. We are pro-business, after all, and permitting this non-invasive test simply made sense. If the test proved it was not viable, then the proponents would not invest further money in testing and inspection, and would not give us a proposal when we asked for RFPs.
Staff agreed. A facility report on the proposal, in late January and provided by the former CAO to council, noted,
…the proponents cannot invest substantially without knowing if their process is likely to work. Therefore, they have put forward the following stepwise program as the "Proof of Concept" phase.
- Initially, they would bring in a microbiologist to identify if there are existing competing species of life in the facility and whether the environmental conditions prove to be favourable for their process.
- Then, they suggest that up to three of the North-South hallways (approx. 8' X 96') in the basement would be cleaned and sanitized and set up with trial rooms for various species of mushrooms…
The first two steps, if they have a plan to maintain adequate egress and air quality, are fairly benign. With careful preparation and adequate monitoring, staff do not have serious concerns with them doing this.
The former CAO was directed by council to have the caretaker let them in so their microbiologist could examine the building, and they could conduct this test.
This council wants to overcome an impression of the past that "Collingwood is closed for business." Had we refused, we would – fairly – have been accused of being closed. But then the conspiracy would have been about why council was putting up roadblocks to local businessmen.
It was all public and very straightforward. The test was done, the building examined, and the proponents made a formal proposal when the town called for an RFP.
But somehow, for some folks, it became a conspiracy.
Last September, the town received an anonymous letter that warned, ominously, "Mushroom plants are known to cause odors (sic) and have the possibility to cause health issues…" and then goes on for four pages railing against mushroom farms and dangerous manure odours in other locales. Obviously the author didn't watch the presentation or read the stories, either (the spelling suggests an American, so perhaps he or she has no access to local council coverage – in which case, what is the interest in a Collingwood proposal?).
In October, a letter was circulating among a small group that asked, among other things, "Who gave the mushroom people the key to the terminal building when was that decision approved?" (sic)
The letter never explained why knowing who gave the proponents the key was important or even relevant.*** Conspiracy theories are like that: they're not about logic.
Then, in December, similar questions were asked of staff and council in an email (quoted as sent):
Have you been able to find any member of council or staff that;
- Gave permission for the tenants to use the terminals (the original email or note confirming this would be great)
- Who physically handed them the keys
- Who has collected any money (even as little as the $1 they offered) during their use of the facility.
Again, no explanation was ever made as to why any of this was relevant. It was just part of that dark Machiavellian council doing evil behind closed doors. Of course the fact that this was all done openly and presented publicly and made good business sense doesn't make the conspiracy play very well.
In response, the current CAO replied:
As I previously mentioned the proponents made an open presentation to Council where they requested an opportunity for a "proof of concept" and offered the "symbolic" dollar for the lease to do so. I was informed that Council were all generally interested in the proposal but realized that the proof of concept was required for the gentlemen to provide an unsolicited proposal to Council. As I understand, the issue was referred to staff whereby permission was given to complete the proof of concept. There has not been any collection of money nor has it been asked for.
But even that didn't kill the conspiracy. It pops up again in the video (linked above in the first paragraph). No rational explanation seems to satisfy some folks that nothing untoward happened.
So I have to ask: What's all this nonsense about? It was a public process; it was pro-business; the land was declared surplus openly and approved in the fall of 2011; we had open discussions about the property at the council table in front of the media; we had open discussions with the proponent and about the proposal at council, and we have a staff report on the request that indicates all the issues, and staff support for doing the 'proof of concept' test.
Why are some folks treating this like some political zombie they continue to resurrect? Put it to rest!
Surely there are other conspiracies to pursue****. Just because the Mayan Apocalypse didn't work out for you, doesn't mean this one will turn out any better. Please, let this be the end of it.
* See plantpath.psu.edu/facilities/mushroom/resources/specialty-mushrooms: "Mainland China is the major producer (3,918,300t-or about 64% of the total) of edible mushrooms (Chang 1999, 2002)." The manure used for button mushrooms here in Canada, at least, is sterilized first. But these aren't button mushrooms, so it's moot point.
** There is a small scale one in Markdale, however.
*** As far as I know, they didn't get one; the caretaker opened the door for them, but even if they did – so what? It's not the key to Fort Knox. It's an abandoned building. Never mind that it makes no sense for a member of council to have the keys to the building or the authority to collect as much as $1 from anyone (we don't).
**** If you must pursue a mushroom conspiracy, look for one with some substance or at least greater entertainment value. For example this, this, this, this or this one.
And as a disclaimer: I speak for myself alone here, not for anyone else or any organization. I have no vested interest in any of the proposals for the terminal use, nor have any conflicts of interest in the process.


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With Office, of course, it all comes down to the applications. Different people use different Office applications, while almost completely ignoring others. Some are Excel wizards, while others seem to know the ins and outs of Word better than anyone at Microsoft. My Office usage has changed a bit over the years--after utilizing the text editor in FrontPage regularly over the years, for example, I've had to move on since Microsoft removed that application from its suites, and OneNote has been a happy new surprise over the past few years. Today, I tend towards applications like Word and Outlook on a very regular basis, followed by OneNote and then PowerPoint for the odd presentation or Web seminar. Your requirements, of course, may be completely different. So I'll try to provide a decent roundup of the most-often used Office applications and note how they've changed--for better or worse--in Office 2007.
As a writer, I spend much of my day in Microsoft Word, and I've grown so accustomed to the small subset of its functionality that I usually use that I often view this application as a text processor that was custom-made only for my particular needs. Interestingly, the ability to hide the Ribbon and customize the new Quick Access Toolbar have made this even more true in Word 2007: I can now easily hide all of the features I rarely use and expose only those few features I need regularly. Neat.
But Word is, of course, far more complex and feature-packed than my simple needs suggest. For typical PC users, Word 2007's new Ribbon-based UI exposes the most-commonly used features in its Home tab, which you'll see by default when you launch Word or double-click a Word document in the Windows shell. Here, you'll find commands related to the system clipboard, fonts, paragraphs, styles, and editing. If all you're doing is editing text, this is probably over 90 percent of what you'll ever use, and it's all available up front and center.
Word, of course, accommodates any need, and and any user. The Insert tab lets you insert such disparate things as tables, page breaks, pictures, charts, headers and footers, and symbols. The Page Layout tab provides access to your document's margins, the number of columns, and indenting and spacing attributes of individual paragraphs. And so on: As you move through the Ribbon's tab set, you'll find logical arrangements of commands, and new tabs, like Picture Tools - Format, will appear when you add new objects to your documents. It's all quite logical, though a little ponderous if you regularly need a single command that's available on a secondary tab (thus the Quick Access Toolbar, I guess).
Word 2007 picks up the new common art, charting and diagraming features that now appear in various other Office applications, including Excel and PowerPoint; previously, each application provided its own unique graphics functionality. (This inefficiency was due, no doubt, to the fact that these applications were originally developed in isolation from each other.) But Word isn't limited to just pretty new graphics: You can now nicely style text and text styles using the new Quick Styles palette, and even switch quickly between pre-made and customizable Style Sets which are also common between various Ribbonized applications. Word 2007 for the first time in, well, forever, includes a nice looking new default style set. But if you want something approximating the default style set found in Office 95 through Office 2003, you can change to the Office 2003 style set. You can even make it the default.
Using an optional but freely downloadable update, you can use the Save As command to save Word documents in Adobe PDF or Microsoft XPS (XML Paper Specification) formats. This is incredibly useful, especially the PDF bit: Previously, you would need Adobe's curiously expensive Acrobat software or a commercial or downloadable utility to convert Word documents to PDF. Sadly, Word can't be used to edit PDF files, however, even those saved from within Word.
For professional writers and office workers who regularly collaborate with others, a new document comparison feature makes it easier than ever to compare two versions of a single document side-by-side. What's really cool is that this enables synchronized scrolling by default, so you're always in the same part of the document in both windows. Nice!
Finally, Word 2007 features an interesting, if somewhat hidden, Web log (blog) publishing and posting feature. Accessed via Publish - Blog in the new Office menu, this feature takes the current document, formats it as a blog post, and opens it in a new window. That window includes a Blog Post tab from which you can further edit the document or publish it (in draft or final form) to Windows Live Spaces, Blogger, Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, Community Server, TypePad, or WordPress. Curiously, this feature doesn't take the first Heading 1 in a document and use it as the blog post title, as you'd want. I'm not too excited by the default formatting of paragraph breaks either, but you can of course edit the thing easily. It's still Word, after all.
I can't claim to be a heavy Excel user (though, curiously, I did co-author an Excel book back in, oh, 1995 or so). However, Excel 2007 has been dramatically updated compared to previous versions and should prove to be a watershed version of this impressive productivity tool. Here's what's new.
First, a dramatic enhancement that makes Excel more powerful: Excel 2007 now supports spreadsheets with up to 1 million rows and 16,000 columns, a massive improvement over the previous version, which supported 65,536 rows and 256 columns.
The Excel charting engine has been significantly enhanced and can create gorgeous 3D charts of virtually any kind, complete with shadows and other professional effects. Best of all, these charts are now shared between Word and PowerPoint as well, for consistent results. That's smart, and it's about time.
Excel's support for tables is greatly enhanced. Now, you can easily create, edit, and manipulate tables, and when you scroll down, the table headings stay in place automatically: No more looking for that obscure table freeze function.
Excel spreadsheets can be managed online via the new Excel Services on Windows SharePoint Server 2007 and any Web browser. This feature, which is obviously oriented towards businesses, allows users without Excel to manipulate and access Excel-based data, dramatically expanding the reach of this mission critical tool. Excel also supports SQL Server Analysis Services, providing Excel users with ways to easily access database-based data sets and perform business intelligence and data mining operations.
Back in the mid-1990's, when I was working at a community college in Scottsdale, Arizona, there was a saying floating around that there were those who could do, and those who could do PowerPoint. The dig there was that PowerPoint was a tool for those who were better at speaking about computer tools than actually implementing them. That memory, combined with widespread questions about the "PowerPointization" of corporate (and even educational) America, where all thoughts, theses, and recommendations must somehow be warped to fit a fixed set of bullet points required by the limitations of a PC-based presentation, have colored my view of this powerful and useful application. That said, I've often had to employ PowerPoint, and these days, it's a necessary part of my arsenal whenever I give in-person or Web-based presentations.
No surprise, but PowerPoint 2007 is the most impressive version of this tool yet. The new version includes a wealth of useful features, but as a humble (and let's face it, pretty unsophisticated) PowerPoint user myself, I would like to point out a simple change that has made all the difference in the world: PowerPoint 2007 includes a new and more professional set of themes--sets of predefined backgrounds, fonts, and colors--that are dramatically better than anything offered in previous versions. In fact, the default themes are so good, I actually enjoy using some of them with no editing at all. (You can see an example in my Windows Vista Security Explained presentation if you're interested.)
PowerPoint also picks up the suite-wide improvements to the now standardized SmartArt, WordArt, and chart features. SmartArt lets you add professional looking graphical diagrams, complete with 3D effects, shadows, glossy sheens, and numerous styles. WordArt, meanwhile, is for creating graphical text, which also can feature 3D effects and shadows. PowerPoint's charts come straight out of Excel land with a variety of templates and styles. These features, like shapes, photos and other pictures, and other objects, are logically added via the new Insert tab. Combined with the previously-mentioned new themes and the simpler Ribbon-based UI, PowerPoint 2007 is an ideal presentation tool, even for beginners.
While PowerPoint 2007 still includes the ability to publish slide decks to a CD or hard drive-based location, creating a standalone version of the presentation that can be viewed with Microsoft's viewer software, the new version also features PDF and XPS exporting, like Word. This way, you can easily export your presentations in formats that are easily printed and viewed by your audience, even if they're using a non-Windows system.
Finally, PowerPoint 2007 also includes an improved version of Presenter View (on the Slide Show tab) that lets you easily access your speaker timings and notes on your laptop's internal display while the actual presentation is beamed to an external display such as a projector. It's good stuff, and now it's much easier to find and use.
In Office 2003, Microsoft paid special attention to Outlook, providing an incredibly useful three pane view that's since been copied--badly, as it turns out--in every email application imaginable, from Mozilla Thunderbird to Windows Mail (the latter of which is included in Windows Vista). Perhaps this is why Outlook 2007 is such a minor improvement. A bizarre halfway house between the Ribbonized apps in Office 2007 and the file-and-menu morass of the past, Outlook 2007 is still a first-class email and personal information management solution. It's just that Microsoft has done nothing to fix some problems that have dogged Outlook for years, and I find its mix of Ribbon and non-Ribbon UIs to be confusing, ugly, and incomplete.
The main Outlook window--what you'd think of as the Outlook application itself--has not been Ribbonized. Instead, it retains the same tired menu-and-toolbar UI that's graced Outlook since its inception a decade ago. This main window has been otherwise updated, however. Now, it utilizes a four-pane UI by default. This UI is particularly well-suited to widescreen displays, as you'll need a bit of horizontal real estate to use it effectively. The new, fourth, and rightmost pane is the To-Do Bar and it can be minimized or disabled if you don't have the space. I find it quite useful: The To-Do Bar is essentially a miniature and always present version of the old Outlook Today screen (which is still available too). It provides an at-a-glance view of the current month and your upcoming appointments and tasks by default. (If you resize it, you can view more than a single month at a time.) In minimized mode, you get only your next pending appointment and task, which is still handy but takes up a lot less space.
Confusingly, you see the Ribbon in Outlook's sub-windows. Click the New Mail button, for example, and you'll be presented with a Ribbonized window that includes Message, Insert, Options, and Format Text tabs. Other sub-windows provide similar Ribbons. New Appointment, for example, includes Appointment, Insert, and Format Text.
Here's the thing. While I generally like the Ribbon a lot, I find its use in Outlook to be inconsistent and jarring. While the old New Mail button from previous Outlook versions featured a prominent Send button in the upper left corner, the use of the Ribbon in Outlook 2007 pushes this crucial bit of UI down. Now, the even bigger Paste button, which appears in the far left the New Mail window's default Ribbon, occupies that position, and more than once I've clicked it by mistake. It's irritating, and on these subwindows, especially, I'd like to see a way for the Ribbon to be made to take up less space. It's just too big for a New Mail window.
Further problematic is that Outlook 2007 includes numerous bugs that were present in previous versions, though I communicated a list of these problems to the Office team on at least two different occasions. And some features are just missing in action this time around. For example, Outlook 2003 includes a way to enable a Views display in the application window itself, so you don't have to navigate around Outlook's convoluted menus to switch views. It's gone in Outlook 2007. Combined with the half-baked Ribbonization, these problems combine to make me believe that Outlook got less attention than it should have in this release. And that's too bad.
Problems aside, Outlook does pick up some very useful new features. The most obvious is the new Instant search functionality, available via a handy and obvious Search box that's located right at the top of each Outlook experience (Mail, Calendar, Tasks, Contacts, and so on). Instant Search, unlike the curiously broken Find feature from previous Outlook versions, actually works, and its filtering feature works intuitively. If you're not running Windows Vista, however, you'll need to download a Windows Desktop Search utility first to use this feature.
Outlook also picks up RSS (Real Simple Syndication) capabilities and will automatically integrate with the RSS functionality from Internet Explorer 7 if you've installed that browser in XP or are running Windows Vista. There's some debate about whether RSS makes more sense from an email application or a Web browser, but if you're running both Outlook and IE 7 your feeds will synchronize automatically between the two and you pick your favorite. When you subscribe to RSS feeds, they appear below the new RSS Feeds entry in your Personal Folders alongside your email inbox and other mail-related folders.
Overall, Outlook 2007 is a frustrating upgrade, because it's good but could be some much more. I'd really like to see what a fully Ribbonized Outlook looks like. My guess is that future versions of the Ribbon UI will be more mature and allow for better customization, making Outlook, finally, a first class Ribbon-based applications. We'll have to wait and see about that, of course.
Customers who opt for the low-priced Office Home and Student Edition 2007 (which replaces Office Student and Teacher Edition 2003) will be surprised to discover that OneNote replaces Outlook in that version of the suite. This is interesting for a few reasons, mostly in that this marks the first time that OneNote is being made available in a volume version of Office. But the decision to showcase OneNote rather than Outlook in a version of the suite that is aimed mostly at students is probably a good one. (Besides, you can pick up Outlook separately if you really need it.) And as fans of the previous versions of OneNote (2003 and 2003 SP1, the latter of which was a major upgrade) might expect, OneNote 2007 is a winner. But no, this application hasn't been Ribbonized, though I suspect that such a change would work wonderfully in OneNote.
What we do get this time around is a bunch of evolutionary improvements that make OneNote feel like a much more mature application. A new Navigation Bar, located in the left side of the application window and resembling the Outlook To-Do Bar, lets you easily access your open notebooks (see below). Unlike the Outlook To-Do Bar, the OneNote Navigation Bar is minimized by default: When you expand it, you'll see a nicely-organized list of all of your notebooks.
As implied above, OneNote now supports multiple notebooks (finally). This allows for further levels of organizational opportunities and frees users from the folder-based organizational scheme required by previous versions.
OneNote picks up the Instant Search functionality from Outlook. I've never been a huge fan of the way OneNote searches, but at least now it's quick, and you can search across multiple notebooks.
While OneNote previously supported shared notebooks, that capability is more elegant and useable in OneNote 2007, which makes it much easier for a single user to maintain notes between, say, a notebook PC and a desktop PC, or for a user to share notes with others. Shared notebooks can reside on a central server in an organization as well, which makes them suddenly useful in businesses. Changes to remote notebooks can be automatically synchronized with this local master, as you'd expect. I can't say that I have much use for this personally, but it will make OneNote a more viable solution in corporate settings, expanding its target market dramatically. Good move.
I was in love with OneNote the second I saw it, but as a heavy user, I've also developed a wish list of needed features. Some have been answered in this release (while others, like notebook locking, which could prevent future edits or deletes to archive notes, have not). One is in-note hyperlinks that link to notes elsewhere, be they in other notebooks or folders, other drives, or PCs, or Web locations. OneNote 2007 adds this useful feature, allowing you to logically jump around notes in a way that's been available in hypermedia solutions since the late 1980s. Back and Forward buttons in the Standard toolbar work just like those in a Web browser.
OneNote 2007 features basic table features, making it possible for the first time to work with tabular data sets. It's not as sophisticated as what's available in Word, let alone Excel, but it's exactly what you'd need in a note-taking environment.
Like other Office 2007 applications, OneNote supports exporting to PDF and XPS formats, which is a nice data sharing feature. There is also a OneNote Mobile application for Windows Mobile-based smart phones, letting you share notes and recordings made from these portable devices with your PC-based note taking solution. Synchronization is two-way, too, so you can push your notes to the device as well.
Finally, a new Full Page View, available via a conspicuous button to the right of OneNote's menu, lets you use the application in a minimal UI mode, where everything but your notes and the Standard and Formatting toolbars are hidden. This is similar to the Hide Ribbon functionality in Ribbonized Office applications and is, I suspect, a temporary solution until OneNote is Ribbonized. It's a nice feature, and one that heavy note takers will likely appreciate.
Other Office applications
Obviously, Office is a lot more than the five applications I've discussed above. That said, I'll need more time before I can say anything concrete about other applications, or even the Office-based servers I'm currently evaluating. Here, however, is a rundown of the other Office 2007 offerings.
Microsoft Office Access 2007
Microsoft's desktop database solution is Ribbonized for 2007 and, for the first time in years, dramatically improved. In fact, Access is the poster child, in many ways, for the Ribbon, since it is the one application that quite clearly never benefitted from Microsoft's earlier push to make the menus and toolbars in all Office applications as similar as possible. After years of declining usage,
Microsoft Office Communicator
This new enterprise-class instant messaging solution in Office 2007 provides instant messaging, voice, and video communications services in a snappy little application that should eventually give Windows Live Messenger and other IM solutions a run for their money, especially in IM-shy businesses. The big advantages of Communicator are its presence support, integration with corporate address books and directories, and integration with Microsoft Office 2007 applications like Outlook.
Microsoft Office Groove 2007
New to Office 2007, Groove is a peer-to-peer collaboration solution that was previously sold as Groove Virtual Office. Groove works with Groove Server 2007 to allow information works to collaborate with others inside of managed environments and on the outside.
Microsoft Office InfoPath 2007
InfoPath is an electronic forms solution that first appeared in Office 2003. Now, InfoPath also integrates with new InfoPath Forms Services capabilities in Office SharePoint Server 2007, as well as other Office applications like Outlook, which can be used to deliver forms to other users.
Microsoft Office Project Standard and Professional 2007
Available in desktop and enterprise-class desktop versions, Project is a project management solution. There is also an Office Project Server 2007, which integrates with Office SharePoint Server 2007 and SQL Server 2000 SP4/2005.
Microsoft Office Publisher 2007
Microsoft's desktop publishing solution features new, professional-looking templates and a browsable template pane, a Content Library for reusing publication assets, and PDF and XPS exporting capabilities, for increased compatibility with print shops.
Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007
New to Office 2007, this application replaces Microsoft FrontPage but appears to be virtually identical and targets SharePoint-based sites. A companion product, Microsoft Expression Web Designer, closely resembles SharePoint Designer but provides Web standards-based tools and capabilities.
Microsoft Office Visio Standard and Professional 2007
Available in both desktop and enterprise-class version, Visio is a business and technical diagramming solution. The new versions feature redesigned templates and template categories, new themes, an AutoConnect feature for connecting shapes, and SharePoint integration.
Final thoughts
Fans of Office--and yes, there are such people out there--understand that Microsoft has guided this complicated set of increasingly interrelated products from evolutionary update to evolutionary update over the past decade or so. Now, I've described Office 2007 as a major, revolutionary update, thanks largely to its new Ribbon-based user interface and, to a lesser extent, its new XML-based file formats. Once you look past these major new changes, however, the actual Office applications have received only the same evolutionary updates that we've come to expect from previous Office suites. And this is as it should be: The Office applications, ultimately, are a very mature set of products, especially when you consider just the "core" and long-lived applications like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook. Microsoft has made greater strides making existing functionality easier to find and use than it has in adding major new functionality in Office 2007. But that's great: We've finally got a version of Office where virtually anyone can master its impressive feature set if they so desire.


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You've seen them crowding the racks at stores and draping the bodies of some of the most well-dressed ladies around… but, what do you actually call them? You know what you shouldn't call them: the hyper-general African print, the offensive "tribal" print, the catch-all "ethnic" print...not okay.
Lumping all similar prints into one group or referring to them by a descriptor rather than their real names is just as silly as calling jeans "blue pants," or a Le Smoking a "black suit." So, we're here to provide a little vocabulary lesson. From ubiquitous Dutch Wax prints to the traditional, striated Ganado print, we've got the real names and stories behind these historic prints. Read on and banish the term "ethnic print" from your lexicon, once and for all.